Dad: My heart says I pulled trigger

Gustav Sanft is ‘‘unsure’’ if he pulled the trigger of the gun which killed his daughter, or whether it went off inadvertently.

Sanft is being tried at the High Court in Auckland for the manslaughter of his daughter Amokura Daniels-Sanft after he shot her in the head with a sawnoff shotgun last year.

In evidence yesterday he told the jury he did not know whether he pulled the trigger, saying: ‘‘my heart say yes, but my mind is unsure’’.

It is the Crown’s case that Sanft pointed the gun at his daughter at close range and pulled the trigger while she was playing on a couch in their South Auckland driveway.

The Crown says Sanft may not have known the gun was going to fire, or was loaded, but pointed the gun to ‘‘scare’’ Amokura for misbehaving.

But Sanft’s defence counsel argues the gun went off inadvertently without the trigger being pulled.

The defence opened their case by calling Sanft, and he recounted the moment he killed his only daughter.

Sanft and his family were in the process of moving house on the morning the fatal shot was fired. In the moments before the killing, Amokura was playing on a pair of couches in the driveway.

He told the court he was holding the gun, which he planned on throwing away, and standing near Amokura when it went off.

‘‘It all happened so fast. I can’t remember which way I was holding the gun, I wasn’t concentrating on the gun. All I remember is the bang,’’ Sanft said between sobs.

‘‘I thought it was from the sky. I didn’t know what to think. I was in disbelief ... all I knew was nothing else could have caused that bang but what I was holding.’’

Sanft said he looked down and saw his dead daughter.

‘‘I turned around, I saw her body shoved between the two couches.

‘‘I knew she was gone from what I saw. Instantly when I saw her I knew she was gone.’’

When asked by his lawyer Phil Hamlin if he pulled the trigger, Sanft became quiet, and then replied; ‘‘My heart say yes, but my mind is unsure,’’ he said.

Hamlin questioned Sanft why he had told a police officer he had ‘‘pulled the trigger’’ when they arrived at the scene.

Sanft told the court it was the ‘‘logical’’ answer, even though he was not sure he had.

‘‘I couldn’t say it was an accident because how do you accidently shoot a kid? Let alone my own child ... I was trying to add up what had happened.’’

Under cross examination by Crown prosecutor Katie Hogan, Sanft repeatedly denied raising the muzzle of the gun towards his daughter prior to the shot being fired.

The gun which killed Amokura was fired in court yesterday, causing Sanft to wail when the shot rang out.

The blank was fired by defence witness Richard Barber, an Australian forensic ballistic expert. He was demonstrating how the gun could fire if the hammer was pulled back, and then released – proving the gun could fire without the trigger being pulled.

His first attempt of what is known as the ‘‘flick test’’ failed to fire the blank round. When he used a new blank round the gun fired, causing a loud bang in the courtroom.

Barber said the hammer could be pulled back easily, causing the gun to fire without the trigger being pulled.

This was unable to happen if the safety catch was on.

Closing arguments in the case are expected to be heard tomorrow.